Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-05-26
A PLAN TO PREVENT POISONING.
An Invention to Which the Attention of
Ingenious Americans is Forcibly Called

An Invention to Which the Attention 9
Ingenious Americans is Forcibly Called.
New York Mail and Express
If some of the thousands Of American
| inventors who are wearing out the gra,
matter in their heads and wasting theil
lives in fruitless struggle with the car
coupler problem and the patent switch
| devise, would turn their attention to {
certain practical need of the retail drug
gist they might win fortunes if not same
Ihe druggist needs some sort of sure and
sharp preventive against the careless use
of poison in his prescription department.
Fatal mistakes don't often occur, it is
true. But so long as there is no safe
guard against mistakes save the careful
ness of sleepy drug clerk, druggists
don't have happy time of it.
The most experienced compounder OF
prescriptions in the world is liable to
take down the wrong bottle sometimes
10 impress upon their prescription
clerks the fact that they are handling
poisons druggists have resorted to q good
many devices.
A druggist on upper Broadway who
does Large Business, keeps all his poi
sons in separate shelf behind glass
slide that has to be opened in peculiar
MANNER.
Others have curiously shaped bottles
for deadly compounds. A common trick
is to have the bottles printed in a
strange and startling way, SO they may
be sure to attract the attention of the
clerks.
The futility of such schemes, which,
after all, leave some loophole for human
carelessness was shown by recent exper-
fence of the aforementioned druggist
His store had been undergoing a spring
cleaning during the day, just after a
man who had rung the clerk up two
O'Clock in the morning to get prescrip-
ton filled had gone the Mortified clerk
discovered that someone had transposed
the oxalic acid and strip simplex bottles.
The clerk knew the mans name but rot
his address. There were sixteen Charles
Hermans in the directory, any of whom
might be the man with the fatal DOSE
The clerk had some sense left in spite o.
his excitement, and after calling in two
or three policemen and as many messen-
ger boys, managed to run down the
right Charles Herman before any harm
could be done. There are more gray
hairs in the clerks head now than there
were week ago, and seve al Charles
Hermans had unnecessary visions of ar.
rest for unknown malefactions.
The most ingenious arrangement thus
far devised is to be seen in the dispensary
| of German druggist on third avenue
All the poison bottles are made with
metal bands to which little chains are at.
tached. The chains run down behind the
prescription desk and are fastened to an
automatic bell. Taking the bottle from
the shelf pulls the chain up and rings
the bell. The proprietor thinks that nc
matter how fast asleep his clerk my be
the bell will waken him in an instant. II
is an expensive arrangement however
and not altogether sure. When an inven
tor hits upon scheme that will work to
an absolute certainty even when the
clerk. has been out all night to the
Deutscher sS@ngerbund and is as sound
asleep as log he will have solved the
most perplexing problem in pharmaceuti
cal practice.